The present invention relates in general to automatic voting and more particularly concerns novel apparatus and techniques suitable for use in relatively simple elections for operation by relatively unsophisticated voters of reliable secure portable apparatus. An exemplary embodiment of the invention for handling small elections with as many as sixteen candidates for a single office weighs but twenty pounds.
An example of the prior art is the Automatic Voting Machine voting machine developed for Venezuela described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,739,151 and 3,847,345. The actual machine provides means for voting for one-in-two offices, weighs 85 pounds and includes a microprocessor semiconductor chip. Aronson U.S. Pat. No. 3,125,289 is also representative of the prior art.
It is an important object of the invention to provide an improved simplified voting machine.
It is another object of the invention to achieve the preceding object with a machine that is reliable, secure and portable.
It is a further object of the invention to achieve one or more of the preceding objects with apparatus that is easy to use by unsophisticated voters.
It is a further object of the invention to achieve one or more of the preceding objects with apparatus capable of accepting a number of acceptable votes for an office, such as selecting a board of directors for a poverty organization.
It is a further object of the invention to achieve one or more of the preceding objects with apparatus that is relatively easy to safely supervise by an election official and is relatively tamperproof.
It is a further object of the invention to achieve one or more of the preceding objects with apparatus that is relatively easy and inexpensive to fabricate while operating reliably.